Thursday, August 20, 2015

Well, that live competition was kind of a cluster. The feeds were down for about 55 minutes of the hour-long competition, and the fans were clamoring for information and clogging the internet to a slow crawl.

After every heat we had FISH, so god knows what was going on there. We got down to the end and it was just Austin and James. James kept doing things that made everybody nervous, goofing around.

But in the end Austin's size won out, as he sprinted faster than James, with legs probably three times the length of James' legs.

So, another week of sexy time in the HoH...and another week of agony for Liz's father, watching his daughter willingly be violated by the hairy beast.

The house guests mill around, trying to act happy about the continuing domination of the AusTwins.

Johnny Mac: Hey...where's our track side whiskey?

Inside the bedroom Austin celebrates with the Twins and Steve comes in to congratulate him.

He sits down with Liz for a quick chat, red lipstick all over his face. He says it was just too risky to throw the competition to James...he knows James wasn't afraid to make a big move by nominating Clay and Shelli so he didn't want to take that chance.

Austin: Look, we're in a great spot right now and everybody knows it. I'm just worried that they will say, let's go for them so I had to try to win. I just need to make a deal with them (Meg and James) that if Jackie comes back, they won't go after the three of us.

In the bathroom Vanessa is whispering with Liz. Liz says it was just too risky to throw the competition to James. Vanessa wondered what Austin will do.

Liz: He has a lot of options.

(I'm sure that vague answer did not ease Vanessa's mind.)

Johnny Mac and Steve have a quick moment to chat.

Johnny: I thought everyone would throw it to me, so I didn't run that fast, to be honest.

(What. A. Dumbass.)

Steve congratulates him for staying in the game, and says Julie didn't hate his speech as much as she hated the last one. (About the stains on the Whackstreet Boys tour bus.)

In the kitchen they talk about who will be the next Have Nots. Someone, Meg, I think, says it is Austin and the Twins turn this week.

After the buzzer issues that were discussed on the last post, the live feeds return and I see Steve pacing on the sidelines as the girls wish the guys luck on the next heat.

Apparently Johnny Mac lost the battle on this heat.

This is as good a time as any for the quid view... the girls start cheering to the tune of "Mickey You're So Fine" and we get FISH again. We have had less than five minutes of live feed time since the live show ended 51 minutes ago...

Johnny Mac, James, Steve, Austin and Vanessa are still in it. The air is tense as the words scroll on the screen, We can't see the words right now on the live feeds.

Steve: Bro! Hey Jace!

Austin looks uncomfortable...that's a lot of weight to hold up, I guess. James has both knees down from time to time, but this will make it harder to get up and sprint to the buzzer when the time comes.

A helicopter or something loud buzzes through the air.

Austin: God damn.

Then there is a loud buzz, and Vanessa stands up, saying it was her...she jumped and came off her buzzers. We go to FISH immediately as the other contestants probably stretch and get ready for the next round.

When we return Vanessa is saying that her muscles were jumpy, and Julia worries that everyone will be eliminated by false starts.

The Twins start talking about dinner and the guys grumble, saying they are doing all of the work now.

Then they see the word Go, and the guys sprint across the field. We hear Production (Heath?) say that all of the guys need to hit the buzzer, and Steve circles back and hits it. There is no sound when he hits it, and we go right to FISH.

This is a new HoH competition and is kind of exciting. It calls for focus and patience, but also speed in getting across the field when it's time to go, and quick reflexes wouldn't hurt, either.

There will be seven separate heats or races. Each house guest must hold down three buttons until they see the word "Go" on the screen, and then run across the field and press a buzzer. One of the three buttons they must hold down is at their feet, on the starting block. Julie reminds Vanessa to keep her foot on the button, along with the two on the ground under each hand.

The last house guest to press the button will be eliminated. There will be decoy words that sound like the word go, and Julie says that it might be a half hour or so before they see the word "go".

Like crow....oh.....bo.... and finally "go". Meg is out first.

Meg, laughing: What a shocker!

The second heat is about to begin as the live show ends. Liz's bright lipstick is kind of jarring after seeing her au naturale for most of her time on the live feeds. I would say that Johnny Mac probably has a good chance at this, since he is fast and is a runner, and is good at watching and waiting. Julia might have a good shot, too. She did track and field in high school, so she is used to standing in the starting blocks and using them to push off.

Not sure about James and Vanessa. Or Austin, who might be easily distracted. Vanessa was the last to buzz in, I think for the first heat, which doesn't bode well for her unless the others get worn down by the monotony of just staring at something, waiting.

While we wait for the live feeds to return....lots of filler on the live show tonight. You know there is not much strategy or game talk to cover when we see footage of pranks yet AGAIN (particularly in darkened rooms...), banal questions for some of the house guests, and then EXTENDED footage of the Zingbot. All that plus a family segment and a Jury segment---we usually don't see the Jury house until there are three or more Jurors, so they are really scrambling to find footage.

(Not a good sign...)

It's been 15 minutes, so I will go ahead and post and update when the live feeds are back. They might be having a problem with the buttons or something....it shouldn't take this long for the feeds to return.

Yesterday the early focus was on injuries...Austin made breakfast for Liz and brewed a pot of coffee for her. Apparently he is not a coffee drinker, but knows that she enjoys it.

When she went over to the coffeepot to pour a cup, scalding hot coffee spewed out and landed on her midsection. She screamed and squealed, and later said she was in shock. Liz looks like she's smiling below, but she seemed to be in a lot of pain and told us that, a number of times-ah.

Austin seemed to have almost no concern for her, still speaking in his normal voice with no apparent urgency. The two of them immediately blamed the faulty coffee pot for the incident.

Austin: They really need to start fixing their shit around here.

Liz looked at the coffee pot and discovered that it was Austin's fault. Apparently he set the paper filter on top of the coffee pot but did not put it inside the little plastic bucket that is supposed to hold it in place. So when she removed the coffee pot all of the coffee still in the filter came splashing out on her.

Vanessa inspected the setup and said it was probably a miracle that the coffee filter stayed in place throughout the brewing process. Austin didn't seem too apologetic about it, even when Liz pointed out her dress was probably ruined.

(We've seen Liz wear that tired dress for how many days now? I'd say it was probably ruined, already, but whatever.)

Austin said his sister would "make Liz a new dress" but Liz did not seem that enthused about that option.

Julia came in the kitchen and Liz tried to get some sympathy, saying look at this, look at my dress, look at me and how hurt I am. Julia seemed distracted and rushed around the kitchen getting ice.

After waiting for hours, Becky apparently saw some sort of medical professional in the DR who lanced her swollen toe and applied a bandage. At this point, Becky was not medicated yet, and she was crying in pain.

Julia came in with the ice for Becky, and then Liz also visited Becky to offer her condolences.

Liz: So it's all fucked up-ah.

From what I've learned from watching the live feeds, Becky's big toe was originally injured when she was playing soccer in school. One of her teammates stepped on her foot and the toenail was broken. The toe nail did not grow back well and ever since then she has had problems with that toe.

While playing the OTEV PoV, she thinks some bacteria got in there and the infection just got worse and worse as the toe began to swell. Must have been that greasy "butta", right?

(I was so distracted during that competition...I'm sure that was probably just yellow oily water, but I was actually imagining having to run around covered in butter and it grossed me out.)

Later in the afternoon Becky went back in the DR and got some meds, some Vicodin and likely an antibiotic. The Vicodin apparently kicked in and helped Becky handle things, as you might guess. In those cases the DR usually maintains all of the pills and doles them out to her at specific times, to prevent Becky from overindulging or from possible ingestion by her cast mates.

Because, Vicodin.

And because enquiring minds need to know, here is a glimpse at what's doing under that bandage.

Yowza. I feel like I need some painkillers just to look at that.

So Liz doesn't have much to complain about, unless she has blistering burns on her legs. Both of the injuries could probably be blamed on Production, to a certain extent, if you had the right lawyer. Because who knows what was in that OTEV stew, and you could probably say that if the cameras were watching Austin fuck up the coffee-making process, they should have warned Liz.

I'm not litigious....just saying...

***SIDEBAR***

People are starting to chat about who from this cast might be invited on The Amazing Race. Clearly, I can't imagine any choices other than the Twins. Whether you love or hate them, they are fun to watch and their arguments are even better due to their strange speech patterns.

I guess you could make a case for Liz and Austin being invited to compete, but I don't think her family would sign off on that and would surely convince her not to do that. Once they can get her home and knock some sense into her....that is.

Also, if Liz and Austin move downstairs to the group bedrooms next week, it won't be long before everyone knows they are having sex. Julia is going to be LIVID about that, and I expect some fireworks around the discovery. If whoever is the HoH is smart, they will realize that Vanessa is on the outs now, and that the AusTwin trio needs to be split up as fast as possible.

I feel sorry for Liz's family. There is NOTHING they can do to intervene now, or to let Liz know that the world is now looking at video which could certainly be described as soft core porn. It would be one thing if she were hooking up with someone like Clay Honeycutt, who would be considered a catch and somewhat of a trophy. People might say, 'who could blame her? Clay is irresistible'. But with Austin? A greasy-looking tattooed hulk who has a Valley Girl accent and admits to having a vampire fetish? Not so much....

This kind of reminds me of BB9, with Chelsea and Crazy James. I don't want to go into that too much here, but I did hear that Chelsea's dad threatened Production, saying he was going to drive to California to forcibly remove Chelsea from the BB house and was somehow mollified by CBS and their legal team. It is easy to understand how her father felt....Crazy James certainly did not tell the other house guests that he had been in a number of very graphic, gay porn movies.

But I digress..

***END OF SIDEBAR***

I think there is a good chance that we will see a family segment on tonight's live show featuring the Twins' family. I had been wondering if they would ever agree at this point to be filmed for the show, but according to a Twitter friend, the filming has already taken place.

Last night, the lovebirds slept after dinner, while the rest of the house guests yelled for them to join the group below. Every Wednesday night they have a bowling tournament while they are locked down inside the house. It's a BB17 tradition.

The feeds were down for about an hour last night as the house guests had dinner from In 'n' Out Burger. They had some sort of luxury competition a few weeks ago that was never shown on the live feeds where they won a few fast food dinners, and this was the final prize dinner, I think.

You can see the evidence of the dinner scattered here and there throughout the house. Becky was already in bed at this point, but Meg doesn't eat meat, either, and apparently ate grilled cheese sandwiches instead of the burgers. And the fries, of course.

Meg: That grilled cheese really put me over the edge! It was so good.

It sounds like it had grilled veggies on it, too, with the In 'n'Out special sauce.

As you know, the house guests do a number of fake advertising spots for their fake sponsors during the bowling tournament. For some reason, Austin and James weren't really participating this week...maybe they were taking a week off or negotiating their contracts.

Instead, Steve and Julia seemed to do most of the commercials, and were insulting the sponsors left and right.

Steve: Brought to you by Irish Spring...freshness you can smell, even though it doesn't cover up Austin's B.O.

Julia: Brought to you by Swiffer...because even they don't want to be here anymore.

and

Julia: Brought to you by In 'n' Out, with a fresh taste since 1948...and (loud whisper) don't get the protein burger!

Which was later changed to "don't get the strawberry shake".

Julia later read the label of a bottle of Huber's Lemonade, commenting that wasn't that good, and was too tangy for her taste.

This is the bowling tournament scoring system. I don't understand it, but you might. It reminds me of an SOS pattern.

They didn't bowl very long. The whole tournament devolved into a food and water fight between Austin and James, and Meg and the Twins. I think Austin actually threw a bowl of water on James in the bathroom or Hammock Room.

Big Brother actually came over the intercom with a message to "clean your house", which was a new one for me. Vanessa was in the line of fire at one point, and looked at Austin and said, "c'mon dude.."

In the HoH room later, Austin whined about this, saying Vanessa was "starting already" and he can't wait for her to leave.

Liz: She's such a wet blanket. We need to have a final five of us, James and Meg. That would be so much fun.

Everyone lounged around the living room and talked about how full they are. Meg talked about wanting to vomit after all of that delicious food.

Becky hobbled in the room and they offered her a left over double burger.

Becky: No...my body wouldn't know what to do with that.

Austin: It's so gross.

Julia: In 'n' Out, with freshness since 1948,

Austin: With burgers that have been there since 1948.

(Austin lives in So Cal, so maybe the In 'n' Out counter staff will recognize him when he visits and add a little something special to his order.)

Julia had a string hanging from her foot and James tried to help her with it.

Also, taking Vicodin didn't stop Becky from talking about herself. Hell no. She had a pretty long conversation with Johnny Mac where they discussed their lives back home. Johnny's dentist office had just taken pictures for a huge billboard in Scranton, and he couldn't tell anyone yet that he might be leaving.

Johnny: I ended up telling them that if I was gone for 4 months, if they needed to replace me they could.

Becky is very concerned with hordes of fans showing up at her Abercombie store, and doesn't even want to tell Johnny which store she will be working at, because America is listening.

Becky: And I can't even imagine all of the letters and stuff they might send me in the mail...and calling me, too. Because I have to answer the phone, saying Hello, this is Abercrombie...

John doesn't think people will show up in Scranton to see him. Also, last night when Becky was laying in the hammock with Steve and John, they were talking about whose job was probably fake in the house. They agreed that they didn't think Da'Vonne was a school teacher. Becky mentioned that the maternity leave that Da'Vonne described didn't make sense for a school teacher's schedule, and then they discussed Vanessa.

Steve: She went to law school....went to Duke...studies music....

John: Yeah...and a poker player.

Becky: Well, and me, too. Did anybody consider that I might not work at Abercrombie after all? Because I could be something else, too.

Steve and John: ***crickets***

Becky: Did anybody think that?

John: Well...no. But you've been pretty specific.

Becky: Exactly. That's why I've been super-specific all summer long, with details about my job at Abercrombie...how I work at Abercrombie.....what kind of items we sell at Abercrombie....

John: Well...I'd say, you sure have a lot of Abercrombie clothes...

(Becky is so hobbled now that there has to be some energy around keeping her and evicting Johnny Mac, right? I've heard James allude to that...they only need three votes to tie, and four to lock it in. If the Goblins were on board for that, and Vanessa could talk Julia into it.....who knows? And I know many of disagree with me, but I still think John is at risk for a penalty vote for brazenly scarfing down those 3 1/2 cookies while giving a thumbs up to the camera. If that happens, that could hurt him...)

(I know I might be spinning here, but it might make for a great live show dynamic if Julie Chen announces the penalty vote before the DR voting process. I'll bet Vanessa would try right then and there on the couch to get the Goblins to vote with her to evict John. Can you imagine the drama around that?)